Maybe I
by eliska
Summary: I never really wanted to let him know. Henrietta/Stan. For T/D's June 2009 Challenge.


A/N:

Red Goth – Trevor

Tall Goth – Ethan

…'Cause I really have no idea what their names are. :3

**_Maybe I…_**

-

_The beginning._

I watched as he lifted her veil to kiss her, the almost invisible fluttering of the wind seeking solace in those lips. She smiled, staring dreamily into his eyes—the gentle deep blue of an ocean. The day was warm, and under the white awnings people stood around with fresh perspiration on their foreheads, whistling and clapping their hands. It was a festive day—anyone could see it, from the colorful tresses hanging from the treetops and vibrant energy radiating off the people dancing underneath the sun. It was the day of their wedding.

And I felt cold.

-

_Three days._

Trevor sat with me on the curb, staring thoughtfully into space. "I take it that you're still into him?"

A stray white car zoomed past us, and the driver eyed us with a distasteful expression; even now, almost a decade since we first entered this world of adulthood, the people here still took us as ill omens, trash that could not find a place to belong in. It was ironic, really, given who we were—and those ideas, at least a part of them, were still with us. I smiled, as if it were truly funny. "It's kind of hard keeping secrets in this town, isn't it?"

He shrugged. "Doubt it. It's not like they'd want to talk to _us_. They've probably got better things to do."

"True."

"But…why? Why him?" I could see where he was going at; from the little gossip I'd heard—wasn't it amazing how I'd actually started to care?—Ethan had been wanting to ask me out for years. It wasn't surprising, really; this was a small town, and small town kids grow up to marry each other. An overgeneralization, surely, but it was how South Park happened to be. I wouldn't be surprised if we were all related, or would be in the near future, given how everyone's kids were running around screwing each other and their cousins twice removed. Going back to Trevor's question, however, it was something I did not quite have an answer for. "I mean, he's…well, you know."

"The kind of guy I'd probably have hated back in school?" He was silent, waiting for me to go on. "Yeah, I get you. Now…well, fuck if I'm wrong, but if I keep dating Ethan wouldn't I be a _conformist_?"

"Damn straight." We laughed for a while, forgetting for the longest time our surroundings—and it felt good.

-

_One month._

I drove past their house that day, and parked in the shade of the elm by the side of the road—its white trunk stark against the greenery. There were bright pink hydrangea bushes along the house; Wendy's doing, I thought darkly. From my vantage point I could see her moving around inside the kitchen, her long, raven hair tied up in a slick ponytail. She seemed to be smiling, a noiseless tune playing on her lips as she worked in her spotless white kitchen—a perfect caricature of the all-American housewife.

She raised her head as the door—somewhere beyond my vision—opened, and the smile on her face grew even wider. My eyes sought him, but there was only a shadow on the wall; obscured by the very shrubs that prevented him from seeing me. Animatedly the girl started chattering away, strangely reminding me of a cartoon—I was looking through the glass at a life I should have had, a life I did not want—or did I? Was it real happiness they were experiencing right this moment? I'd like to think that it was all a mask hiding the frustration and anger their relationship held; but this was not elementary school anymore, and I was no longer who I was, the identity I'd held on to for the longest time. I could no longer blame my own insecurities on the happiness of others, although those ideals still lingered in the back of my mind, refusing to fade away.

The flowers swayed in the gentle breeze, and I wondered—just wondered—if they could hear my voice.

-

_Five months._

That day it rained, and it was as dismal as dismal could be. I guess if I were a little older, the kids on the street would probably take me as a witch of sorts, if their parents still told them stories like that. It wasn't as if anything was wrong—rather, I'd still probably have dressed in black even if that phase hadn't caught me back in those days.

I have always liked simple things.

The shopkeeper glanced at me from behind the counter, and then went back to his John Grisham novel; there were no other people inside. _For the better, I guess._

"Do you have any roses?" I could tell he looked very reluctant to speak to me, as his eyes never left the book in front of him. _The Testament_, I read. I wondered briefly what it was about, until he spoke—surprisingly enough.

"What color?"

"White." He eyed me strangely, and I couldn't blame him for that; what was one to do with a bunch of white roses? I smiled at him, hoping that he would not ask any further. It would be a rather strange thing to explain. "Five, please."

I walked out of the shop, aware of his curious dark eyes on my receding back. A lifetime ago we'd been in the same crowded classroom, learning about things neither of us would've understood. It did not matter to me that he did not recognize me; I almost did not recognize him, either. The years take hold of your senses, twisting them to make the familiar people in your life unrecognizable; even in mutual hatred, because I did not much like him at all back then, either.

This time I thought I should walk, and did so with an umbrella; the notion of walking, head-down and dejected in the rain had long fleeted my mind. The warm glow emitting from the window reminded me of the home I never had growing up. My parents loved me—and only now, _only_ now I realized this—and bore with me the constant tantrums I threw and the pessimistic view I'd always carried with me, a weapon of sorts against their cheerful nature. This all seemed very far away now, and I could only keep walking.

I placed the roses at their front door, not caring whether or not anyone would pick them up; my promise to myself was done. Dispassionately, I stared into the small panel of glass and the whitewashed wall that just barely shrouded me from view. Wendy was holding his hand, her gentle movements across his skin not lost on me; or him, for that matter, as I saw his eyes soften considerably.

If Trevor was here to ask me what I missed the most about Stan, I would answer without hesitation—

"His eyes."

-

_One year._

"Fuck this," I muttered, slamming the screen into the window, nearly breaking it in half. Gentleness wasn't a part of who I was, and never would be, I supposed. Across the room, Ethan shuffled his feet, clearly embarrassed. _Should've damn well known. God damn it, I'm a fucking _Goth_ after all—I should be fucking _pessimistic_!_ "Ethan, I don't…I don't know, just—just leave me alone for a second, will you? I just can't—"

"I'll go outside now," he stated quietly, and moved. _Good. At least he has some damn sense in him._

I didn't really know what had gotten into me back then; it was something that just _happened_, a spontaneous outburst that seemed to be characteristic of me. It was not without an incentive, however.

"Time is fluid here." I remember reading that somewhere, and it is true, in a way—one simply does not feel it slipping by, especially in a place like this. Times change and that change is sometimes so subtle, like the vines slowly creeping up your wall, and you don't notice it until it's covered the whole expanse in its entirety.

_Just like them._

At first it was just mere coincidences, until it started happening so frequently that I began to consider them as something more; everything happens for a reason, or so some people say. My job at the grocery store took me down their lane every single day, and frankly it became impossible for me—impossible to _not_ stop and look, to not observe and ponder on the meaning of married life.

If you want to put it in such a pseudo-philosophical way, that is. To me it was not entirely that, and it became somewhat of an obsession. I'd hide, always, when she would come out or come walking down the street, head held high like she always did. It wouldn't exactly be a pleasant thing to have others spying you gawking at a married man's behind when his wife was strutting nearby, no matter how much I tried not to care. It always got hard, in the end. Getting back to the point—it was just something I did, like watering the flowers or laying out sheets, an integral part of my existence.

I could not hate her, but I hated the presence of her shadow with every fiber of myself, that which obstructed me. It was irrational, I know; even if she hadn't been there, I would have never gotten to him.

Would I have?

-

_Two years._

People never notice others around them, the little-by-little disintegration of a seemingly flawless thing, be it an ideal or a thought or a marriage. We had already thought of this when we were younger; that people were selfish, rarely ever looking out of their little cocoon of life, lost amidst the business of themselves—that was why we became who we were.

Ironic, isn't it?

Most people go by unexamined, and I could only see the changes in her because I wanted to. The days had become weary, pockmarked by a range of emotions that I didn't remember was there before. He barely ever smiled inside the confines of his house anymore—I knew...I was there.

It did not cause me happiness when I saw the pieces slowly falling together; rather, it felt guilty to me. Trevor still didn't believe so, but the fairytale endings that most little girls grew up with—it grew up with me, too, in a much darker place, marred by cultish practices and unsustainable needs.

I guess you could say I still cared for him, something not entirely untrue or fully understood. There are only so many things one can understand in life; and standing there between the rosebushes while watching their ever-widening gulf of silence, I could see that maybe this wasn't one of them.

-

_Four years._

"Hey, wanna hear a joke?"

"…Cut it out, Trevor. I'm not in the mood."

He sighed. "This isn't funny, you know. We're not little kids anymore, and you won't tell me why you've been like this for…ages. You know?"

"Fine. Tell me the damn joke."

"Why is it so hard for goths to get work?" I groaned, and he gave me a wink. It wasn't as if I was exactly annoyed about that seemingly endless chain of 'goth jokes' he came up with, but I got the feeling that he wanted to say something more. "Guess. It's got something to do with you"

"Is this supposed to be funny?"

"You bet. Because all they can do is mope the floors are depress the buttons. Like _you_, my friend. Look at your eyes! Damn it, Henrietta—you gotta snap out of this."

_Never show your feelings_. That was a rule I'd tried to live by; sometimes it worked, sometimes…not. "It's none of your business."

But he'd already seen the look. _Many_ times before. "I can't believe you still love him."

"What _can_ you believe, then?" Exasperation creeped into my voice, something that I'd never intended; he understood what I meant, I knew, but it did not make me feel any less awkward. "I mean, God…I don't know how to handle this. It's just fucking retarded, the way things are now. They're fighting all the time now and I'm just standing there and damnit I can't—I just can't bring myself to get nearer. It's like a fucking warzone out there. You know?"

If he was ever taken aback by the things I had said—and even I was, a little, startled at the fluidity of my words—he never showed it.

And he gave me the first kiss I never had.

"Don't worry about them, now."

-

I thought I saw him coming out of the store, but never really took notice until he walked up and grabbed my hand. Those blue eyes I looked up to when I finally consented to let it all go—it was maybe the first time I really saw them, hauntingly beautiful but at the same time gaunt and lonely.

"Were you the one?" He asked, so quietly that I scarcely believed it was his voice I was hearing—with all those years of being resident jock at our school, I'd expected him to still be that loud, independent kid he was. Maybe he still was, somewhere, but it was not his time, not then. "I've seen you before, standing outside my door. Did you give me those roses?"

All at once I was struck with an inability to speak, not because I was afraid of speaking up for myself but because this was the first time he'd spoken to me in years. I could not fathom how he'd seen me, but there was no escape now. "I am."

A split second passed in which I thought he might suddenly start choking me in the middle of the road for embarrassing him—what if_ that_ was the reason that they started drifting apart? Was I a homewrecker now? Was I supposed to even _care_? A million train of thoughts flashed before my mind, phantasmagoria of images that were either figments of imagination or omens of things to come. Was I crazy now?

_And I was, back then._

He did not say any more, but led me to a semi-secluded area where at least I could be spared the embarrassment of having people standing by and wondering whatever the fuck we were up to. "Tell me everything."

So I did, from the beginning to the end—the wedding, the watchings, everything I'd seen them do from that vantage point behind the roses, my secret that probably wasn't a secret anymore—and suddenly realized how surreal this was. How did he know, of all people? I've never told anyone—

_"Don't worry about them, now."_

Oh, shit. "Did he tell you this?"

Stan looked away. "I suppose I'll have to tell you how I fucked up now."

"It's not you."

"It is. You should know, the way you watched us." I thought I could detect a sigh of impatience, even reproaching, but it vanished as soon as I started to listen. He told me about their marriage, I suppose, not out of random kindness but because maybe _he_ also needed an outlet, someone that just wasn't his wife. I sat there and listened, once again in midst of somebody else's problems—bad job, crashed marriage, things that happen to millions of people around the world. It did not make his story any less real, but I like to believe things happen for a reason.

When he finally finished, we sat there for some time in contemplative—or not?—silence, and I thought of the haggard look in his eyes.

_"Did I cause this?"_

Sometimes things get a little awkward along the way, misconstrued by different people with different viewpoints. Maybe this _was_ my fault, but he didn't think so, or the other way around. Would things have been any different, then? "I guess…it's time to move on, then."

He smiled wanly. "If you say so."

-

White clouds, blue sky. It all seemed irrelevant now, the things that had happened before.

They had broken up about two weeks after our talk, and I had not been back to their house since. What was done was done, and I felt as if I had accomplished something, even if it was not something I had intended to do. Maybe it was all for good, in the end.

I touched the white petals on the ground beside me, the silence of the woods comforting. Love was a strange thing, and longing even more so. I never knew who I would be when I was younger, a rebellious and estranged child who hated the world for what it was. I was still that child in a way, but something had dropped for the time being…and I felt free.

"These are for you."

-

Fin.

--

Written for the June '09 T/D challenge. **Flowers, eyes, white.**

I don't know. I don't think it turned out the way it should, but…oh, well. Figures. 8D. I didn't really edit, so it's kinda sucky. :/

Oh, and anyone who can catch the Stone Sour reference and/or the meaning of the roses gets a virtual cookie. :D.

Review? :P


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